Peter Chianca: The week in dogs, burritos and gay wizards

Thursday

Oct 25, 2007 at 12:01 AMOct 25, 2007 at 3:07 AM

Given my early deadline for this column, I’m hoping that by the time you read this the crisis over Ellen DeGeneres' dog will be over. I’m referring of course to the incident in which Iggy the Brussels Griffon mix was removed from the family of Ellen's hairdresser by the Mutts & Moms dog adoption agency. (Company motto: “Just Try to Get One of Our Dogs.”)

Peter Chianca

Given my early deadline for this column, I’m hoping that by the time you read this the crisis over Ellen DeGeneres' dog will be over. I’m referring of course to the incident in which Iggy the Brussels Griffon mix was removed from the family of Ellen's hairdresser by the Mutts & Moms dog adoption agency. (Company motto: “Just Try to Get One of Our Dogs.”)

But I ask you: How can something like that make top headlines when there are so many more important things happening in the world? For instance, at practically the same moment, Hardee's was unveiling its 920-calorie, 60-grams-of-fat Country Breakfast Burrito. This is the burrito featuring two egg omelets filled with bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and sausage gravy, all wrapped inside a flour tortilla. This is the burrito the way God intended it: Illegal in six states.

Hardee's is apparently just tickled with itself at having come up with this idea, noting that "It makes this big country breakfast portable." This comes in especially handy for farmers who like to eat their bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and sausage gravy while driving their tractor, so they can get all their plowing done and still have time for their heart attack.

But leave it to the namby-pambys at the Center for Science in the Public Interest to rain on Hardee's sausage and diced ham-filled parade, calling trans-fat-laden fast-food items like the Country Breakfast Burrito "food porn." Which is absolutely, definitely a movie I don't want to see.

And while the Country Breakfast Burrito was easily the most important breakfast burrito story so far this week, there were yet other important news items vying for our attention. For instance, there was the book signing at which “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling announced that Professor Dumbledore is gay. Because apparently she thought that she could be just a little more unpopular with Evangelicals who already think she's a Satan worshipper.

(In a related story, Rowling has decided that now that she doesn't have anything left to write, she's just going to spend the rest of her life messing with us.)

And yet despite all these important stories, somehow Ellen dominated the headlines all week. For instance, you probably heard that Mutts & Moms received death threats after refusing to return the dog to Ellen's hairdresser. To which I respond: What did they expect, messing with Ellen fans? These are violent, desperate individuals. If they had been around in 1969, these are the people they would have recruited to do security at Altamont.

We can only hope this ends peacefully, and not with Ellen's studio audience marching on Mutts & Moms with torches and pitchforks, like they do every Friday afternoon at Anne Heche's house. Meanwhile, I would encourage our news media to make better choices on what stories to cover. For instance, I think I remember hearing that Congress did something last week.

I’m not sure exactly what, but I’m hoping it has nothing to do with banning trans-fats. The farmers would be crushed.

Editor’s note: Peter Chianca is on vacation; this column was cobbled together, possibly by elves, from items appearing in the last week on his At Large Blog (www.chianca-at-large.blogspot.com). To subscribe to At Large, e-mail info@chianca-at-large.com with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”)